St. Paul daily globe., 1887-10-06

I.
its paid adherents-its favorites are
more powerful than princes; honorable
business men must crawl at its feet for
permission to carry on successful
business; great cities are in its tolls; it
degrades to its vile purposes the officials
of sovereign states; its grip is on the
continent. Not alone by vulgar bribery
does it seek to control the country: it
becomes all things to all men, so that
its purposes are accomplished. There
are promotions for aspiring politicians;
there are retainers for influential at
tOrneys; there are cancellations for men
of business; there are new fields of trade
for great cities-to localities promise of
more railways and fastened develop
ment-there are shops for small towns
and stockyards for those more ambitious
there are holiday excursions at re-
duced rates for the maSSes-there are
advertising columns for the printer
there are passes fos dead-heads-th
are half fares for preachers, and all
this falling when election day comes
around there is money to debauch
voters, and thus they trust to fill the
halls of legislation with their adherents.
and if perchance they should fail there,
their strongest hold is to fill official
positions with those who will honestly
explain away laws made for the peO-
Piles, protection while the plundering
still goes on.
Let us not be misunderstood. 1t is
not. the railway system that we arraign;
it is only its abuses and the abuses of
those who, by reason of its policy. are
leagued with it to unjustly absorb the
proceeds of the labor of the people and
unjustly destroy the business Of those
whom it is the interest of its supporters
to have crushed. When confined to its
proper sphere, (and there are doubtless
honorable exceptions in railway man
agement,) that OF transporting pasSen-
gers and freight as common carriers. it
is an honorable and eminently respecta-
BILE business; there is no development of
modern civilization more conducive to
the peoples comfort and physicalwelfare.
But when it attempts for its own base
purposes to govern states, when it uses
its great powers to neutraliZe or to defy
the law, when through its matchless fa-
cllitieS for organization it attempts to
control the business of the country, or
any part of it, regardless of the peoples
rights, when it is turned into piece of
machinery for unjuStly extOrting money
from the people, for building up those
who do its bidding, for crushing out
those whom it cannot control. it be-
comes, like every other despotiSm, an
instrument of oppression, inimical to
the public welfare and obnoxious to
every lover of what is fair and right.
Well, what is the remedy? We answer
agitate, agitate, agitate! Let OH the
light. Let the truth be promulgated, in
season and out of season, until every
person in America of average intelli-
gence fully comprehends the frauds and
! eXtortions practiced upon the people.
and until no honorable man will dare
defend or excuse in CORPORATION what
he would not defend or excuse in an in
diyidual. Let all the people understand
that railways exist by reason of law
that they are indeed public agents as
the postoffice is public agent. for the
use of all the people on equal and rea-
sonable terms. The fact of the manage
ment being delegated to private citizens
does not make them any the less public
highways. Let it be understood
everywhere that no man, however DOW
erful shall have any advantage in their
use over the humblest citizen. Let it
be repeated again and again that the
smallest and most unimpOrtant village
has the same rights on the tracks that
great city has. These rights cannot be
abridged without infringing ON the lib
critics of the people. There must be no
discrimination in favor of either person
Orplace. These principles are embraced
in the interstate law; let the people see
to it that they are not frittered away by
legal technicalitieS or failure to exc
cute the law. Stand by the interstate
commission as long as it stands by the
rights of the people. But blast with
public Indignation any man or set of
men who shall dare to betray an eXecu-
tive trust by belittling OF explaining
away the laws already enacted for the
peoples protection.
If the law proves defective, make it
eff1cient-in no case let it be repealed.
Take no backward step, either in state
or national legislation. Government
must control railways as far as such con-
irol is necessary to protect the people.
fought to go no further. Dividends
upon Watered stocks are continuous
and a continuing fraud upon the public
which no lapse of time can condone.
Every act of every public railway cor
pOratiOn should be open to public scru-
tiny. If honestly conducted, no private
interest can be INJURED. and if diShon-
estly managed the public have right to
know it. Every expenditure, including
salaries paid to railway officials, is
proper object for public considera-
tiOn-the public will be reason
able--the people pay the bills
they have right to know where the
money goes. Railway property must
be taxed as other property is taxed. 1t
should pay its just share of state,
county, school and all other local taxes.
There must be freedom of traffic
throughout the country. 1t is not the
business of corporation to direct the
course of traffic entrusted to it as a COM
mon carrier; it is its business to trans
port it in such direction as the shipper
may direct at reasonable rates and for
all alike. Facilities at the lowest reas-
enable cost for interchange of traffic
between intersecting or contiguous
roads must be provided. Carload lots
should be transferred without unload
ing.
We take issue with reported decision
of the railway commissioners of the
state of Minnesota wherein they made
haste to decide that the people on any
of the lines of great corporation shall
be compelled to pay higher rates than
those on any other of its lines. That de-
cision carried out will place many
portions of the country under such dis
advantages by the action of law as will
prevent them engaging in ought but
petty local business. 1t is a fact that
many branch roads have been built for
the express purpose of keeping out com
peGlnS lines. by CnlS reported decision
the people in such cases would he
cheated out of their right to cheaper
railway service, while the railway COM
pany which had deprived them of that
cheaper service would be reaping an
advantage from its own wrong. The
newspapers also report that Justice
Field, of California, one of the Judges
of the supreme court of the United
States, has decided in a recent case that
the government, through its agents, has
no right to inquire into the expendi-
lures of money by corporation in
which the government is itself largely in
tereSted as creditor. We ask the peo-
,,ja ta tal iScnn loo v,itl, bof Il